Ten Terrifying Questions with Tricia Stringer!

Tricia Stringer is a bestselling and multiple award-winning author. Tricia grew up on a farm in country South Australia and has spent most of her life in rural communities, as owner of a post office and bookshop, as a teacher and librarian, and now as a full-time writer. She lives in the beautiful Copper Coast region with her husband Daryl, travelling and exploring Australia’s diverse communities and landscapes, and sharing her passion for the country and its people through her authentic stories and their vivid characters. Her latest book is Birds of a Feather, a saga of three women thrown together by unusual circumstances.

Today, Tricia Stringer is on the blog to take on our Ten Terrifying Questions! Read on …

Tricia Stringer

1. To begin with, why don’t you tell us a little bit about yourself – where were you born? Raised? Schooled?

I’m a country girl. I was born on Eyre Peninsula, South Australia and raised on a farm by loving parents and a caring wider community. It was a wonderful place to grow up. I attended the local one teacher R-7 school, there were about sixteen of us, nearly all boys, I had one year at a nearby area school where I was in a year seven class of forty-three and then went to an all-girls boarding school in Adelaide. I look back with gratitude on all those experiences.

2. What did you want to be when you were twelve, eighteen and thirty? And why?

At twelve I wanted to be a librarian, then a flight hostess, then an architect, then an animal geneticist and by eighteen I was studying to be a teacher. At thirty I was a mum for the third time. Family is my other great love.

3. What strongly held belief did you have at eighteen that you don’t have now?

That I’d be a teacher my whole life. I never imagined that I’d leave that to become a full-time writer in my late fifties.

4. What are three works of art – this could be a book, painting, piece of music, film, etc – that influenced your development as a writer?

February Dragon by Colin Thiele – I discovered there were stories about the people and the country I knew instead of only American and English lives.

All the Rivers Run by Nancy Cato – not only did I love the Australian setting and the history but also that female characters can be strong and independent.

A Taste For It by Monica McInerney – her first novel and as I read it I knew I wanted to write books like that with warm relatable characters in an Australian setting.

5. Considering the many artistic forms out there, what appeals to you about writing a novel?

It’s a challenging and inspiring creative process that I love, and the only one I can actually do well.

6. Please tell us about your latest novel!

Birds of a Feather is about unlikely friendships and the importance of community. Three independent women, Eve, Julia and Lucy are at different ages and stages of their lives when circumstance brings them together in the coastal fishing town of Wallaby Bay. They get caught up in the community with its interactions, gossip and loyalties and they form a tenuous friendship which exposes past hurts and losses, making them question their lives and abilities. Birds of a Feather explores the premise that it’s not life’s challenges that define us but how we deal with those challenges that make us.

7. What do you hope people take away with them after reading your work?

That they’ve learned something new, experienced something different and above all that they’ve enjoyed their time between the pages.

8. Who do you most admire in the writing world and why?

Two talented and hardworking writers, Monica McInerny and Fiona McIntosh. They have supported and encouraged my writing aspirations and extend that generosity to many others.

9. Many artists set themselves very ambitious goals. What are yours?

To finish writing the current work in progress. And if I get the chance to lift my head from that I dream about selling my books overseas and having my historical saga made into a mini-series for TV.

10. Do you have any advice for aspiring writers?

Work, enjoy what you do and never give up on your dreams.

Thank you for playing!

—Birds of a Feather by Tricia Stringer (HarperCollins Australia) is out now.

Birds of a Feather

Limited Signed Copies Available!

by Tricia Stringer

Eve has been a partner in a Wallaby Bay fishing fleet as long as she can remember. Now they want her to sell - but what would her life be without work? She lives alone, her role on the town committee has been spiked by malicious gossip and she is incapacitated after surgery. For the first time in her life she feels weak, vulnerable - old.

When her troubled god-daughter Julia arrives at Wallaby Bay, she seems to offer Eve a reprieve from her own concerns. But there is no such thing as plain sailing. Eve has another house guest, the abrasive Lucy, who is helping her recuperate...

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